Are Toys to Life really dead ?

With the first sucessfull toys to life franchise Skylanders in hiatus, Infinity from Disney and Lego Dimensions out of the game, it’s feels like the end of the toys to life trend. But is it really ?

Why the first generation of toys to life stopped

The very first to stop was Disney with disney infinity. The reasons are some average games, and a strange distribution a toys to life. It’s fell like just to support a new movie, but with no video game or a DLC to play with.

Lego Dimensions is more complicated. The game was fun but the pack were all over the place with so many diffrents franchises and quite expansive.

Skylanders from Activition is simply declining in sales every single year. It seems that Activision will revive the concept later, focusing right now on the Spyro remaster.

So are toys to life gone ?

The short answer is no. The long answer is they are still here and they are evolving.

Nintendo is still selling a lot of Amiibo, even with no clear video game dedicated, still they are here and they are here to stay for a while. They’re more of a collectable item.

But that’s not it. Others companies are crating some new and exiting toys to life video games with no portal needed.

Lightseekers Awakening

On one side we have the outsider : Lightseekers Awakening developped by PlayFusion . This is definitely the spiritual son of Skylanders.

Lightseekers Awakening is an ambitious game : it feature five huge 7 inch toys, fully articulated and customisable. The video game is an adventure RPG and so far only available on tablet and smartphone.

But that’s not it : it’s also a card game (and a good one) and these cards can come to life.

Starlink Battle for Atlas (Q3 2018 - Switch, PS4, XBox One)

On the other side, we have Starlink Battle for Atlas the heavy weight of the market, produced by Ubisoft and scheduled to be released in the second half of 2018 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

This space action-adventure game also feature toys to life elements. The player can swap components such as pilot, cockpit, wings and weapons. He can place their toys on a custom controller mount, and their digital counterpart will appear on-screen.

This is an incredible fusion between Skylanders Supercharger and No Man’s Sky : no loading time when you land on planets.

Players can play the game digitally without purchasing any of the toys. The game features a two-player cooperative multiplayer mode as the team thought that it will be interesting to see players exchanging parts for their ships during play.